Rangers kept their title ambitions alive with a narrow 1-0 Scottish Premiership victory over Aberdeen at a packed Ibrox, with Kemar Roofe scoring the winner.
The occasion should have been one for celebration, with the Ibrox sides 150th anniversary sparking entertainment around the stadium with a fan village to mark the occasion.
A nervy performance wasn’t what the Rangers faithful had in mind, but another three points are massive in the title race as three key talking points emerge from the match.
The Run of matches has finally caught up with the players, with worse to come
Since January 18, Rangers have played 14 matches and through Scottish Cup, League, and Europa League duty, it has worked out at around two a week.
With the last 16 clash against Red Star Belgrade approaching and a Scottish Cup quarter-final too, the matches show no sign of slowing down.
Giovanni van Bronckhorst was criticised in midweek for not making any subs during a subpar performance against St Johnstone and if regular rotation isn’t put in place going forward, then burnout will cause us to miss out on silverware.
Kemar Roofe shows Gio what he has been missing
Roofe played a crucial part in Rangers strolling to the league title last season, featuring heavily, and scoring crucial goals, both domestically and in Europe.
This season has been different, however, with the player only scoring twice under Gio thus far until the winner today. Even then, that was only his second league goal since December 1, also a winner in a 1-0 victory over Hibs.
When Roofe is fit, he can prove to be an absolute menace for the opposition defenders and offers something slightly different to our other forwards.
Hopefully, the manager utilises him more often in the run-in.
Fashion Sakala fails to take his chance
There is no one more likable at the club than Sakala, with his positive attitude and raw potential, but it has been very stop-start for the player since he arrived.
A hat-trick against Motherwell in October looked like it could be the catalyst for him to shine but it just hasn’t happened.
Gio started the Zambian against Aberdeen in the hope that his unpredictability and pace would unnerve the Dons backline. It didn’t pay off and he was substituted after 59 minutes.
His main strength is that of an impact player at the moment and the manager might revert back to that tactic following today’s performance.
